|
And
The
Reply to
Internal Document (click here)
The Holodomor
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: THE FAMINE (HOLODOMOR)
1.
I attach a note which looks at the Ukrainian (Soviet) famine of
1932-3. I am grateful to …… for comments on an earlier draft.
2.
Main points:
·
The famine has become a major political issue in Ukraine
during the last 25 years, largely as a result of lobbying by the Ukrainian
diaspora, the break-up of the USSR and its utility in support of
nation-building in independent Ukraine (paras 2-3);
·
The consensus among historians is that the famine killed 3-6
million Ukrainians. Several factors caused the disaster. One was a policy
of deliberate starvation by the Stalin leadership. The most controversial
issue is whether the famine was an act of genocide against the Ukrainian
people. The evidence suggests not (paras 4-8);
·
The Kremlin opposes Ukrainian calls for the famine to be
classed as genocide. This is a sore point in the bilateral relationship.
But Russian views are complex (para 9); and
·
HMG's line on the famine is sound, but will probably need
up-dating. In terms of language and handling, the Armenian 'genocide' may
offer lessons (paras 10-14).
3.
Comments welcome, as ever.
Research Analysts
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
Tel:
UKRAINE: THE FAMINE (HOLODOMOR)
1.
This note looks at the Ukrainian (Soviet) famine of 1932-3. It
covers the main areas of debate, in particular the question of whether the
famine should be regarded as genocide. It also offers some thoughts on
handling, drawing on the experience of the Armenian 'genocide'.
THE FAMINE AS AN ISSUE
2.
The Ukrainian (Soviet) famine (holodomor)
of 1932-3 attracted relatively little attention until the mid-1980s.
It had long been a rallying-point before then for the overwhelmingly
anti-Soviet Ukrainian diaspora, who held it up as proof of the murderous and
anti-Ukrainian nature of the Soviet regime. But successive Soviet
leaderships denied that it had taken place. Little serious academic
research was undertaken. Soviet historians, with a few exceptions, echoed
the Kremlin line. Their Western counterparts were more active and
inquiring, but were hamstrung by lack of access to sources. It is only
during the last quarter of a century that the famine has become a major
issue of historical and political debate. The initial impetus came from the
West, largely as a result of lobbying by the Ukrainian diaspora, which
focussed its activities on marking the 50th anniversary in 1983.
The results included a series of US congressional initiatives (notably, a
congressional resolution and a congressional commission of investigation).
Serious academic studies began to appear. A watershed was the publication
in 1986 of Robert Conquest's Harvest of Sorrow. A second factor was
the process of political reform in Gorbachev's USSR which provided greater
scope for hitherto taboo subjects to be examined with greater freedom. The
relaxation of controls also fed an upsurge of national unrest across the
Soviet Union, including Ukraine, where the famine became a symbolic issue
for the independence movement. The rising nationalist tide forced the
Soviet authorities to shift their position on this issue, as on many others.
It was generally accepted in Ukraine by the time the USSR broke up that the
famine had indeed taken place.
3.
After languishing as a pubic issue for several years in the 1990s,
the question acquired renewed prominence towards the end of the decade, as
the regime of President Kuchma sought to use it as a way of building
domestic political support. Having introduced a day of commemoration (26
November) in 1998, Kuchma went further in 2002 and signed a presidential
decree asserting that the famine had in fact been 'genocide' against the
Ukrainian nation. A parliamentary resolution in 2003 reiterated this view.
More controversially, Ukraine later that year tabled a resolution to the
UNGA calling for the famine to be recognised as genocide under the 1948 UN
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. (It
withdrew the draft, following Russian counter-lobbying and expressions of EU
disagreement. It instead agreed a joint statement, co-signed by 25
countries including Russia, which referred to the famine as a 'national
tragedy'.) The Orange Revolution of 2004 brought to power individuals,
notably President Yushchenko, who are convinced that the famine was genocide
and who see this interpretation as a central part of their nation-building
project (Yushchenko sponsored this week's Rada bill reaffirming the genocide
line and condemning any public denial of the famine as illegal and
sacrilegious). Opinion polls show that Yushchenko's view is not universally
shared in Ukraine. According to a poll compiled earlier this month, 27.5%
of people thought that the famine was an attempt to annihilate the Ukrainian
people, whereas 45.5% blamed the Soviet authorities, but ascribed different
motivations to Stalin and other leaders. It is interesting to note that
Prime Minister Yanukovych, for example, referred to the famine earlier this
week as a 'national tragedy'.
THE KEY HISTORICAL DEBATES: MORTALITY….
4. There are two main areas of disagreement among historians of
the famine. The first of these is mortality. It is beyond doubt that
the death toll was horrendous, but estimates vary. The consensus is in
the region of 3-6 million, lower than the figure of 7-10 million given
by Yushchenko at the holodomor commemoration on 25 November.
Conquest arrived at a figure of 7 million deaths from famine throughout the
Soviet Union in 1932-3, including 5 million in Ukraine itself, plus another
1 million Ukrainians elsewhere in the USSR. RW Davies and Stephen
Wheatcroft believe that the death toll was lower: 5.5-6.5 million for the
USSR as a whole and 3-3.5 million for Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian
historian Stanislav Kulchytsky, outright deaths in Ukraine numbered 3-3.5
million, with 'aggregate losses' (ie deaths, plus an estimate for unborn
children) of 5 million. While less than the figure quoted by Yushchenko, 5
million deaths would still represent more than 15% of the population of
Ukraine at the time, a loss of life with few recent parallels in peacetime.
….& CAUSATION
5. By far the most controversial issue is causality. There are
two key issues in this connection. First of all, was the famine the result
of a deliberate policy of starvation implemented by the Stalinist
leadership? The answer seems to be: yes, in part. There is now a
powerful body of evidence which suggests that three factors brought about
the famine. The main one, according to Davies and Wheatcroft, was the
over-riding importance attached by the Kremlin to the policy of
industrialisation at break-neck speed by ruthlessly squeezing the
agricultural sector. This was to be achieved by stripping the countryside
of food through forcible grain requisitions. The food would then be used to
feed the USSR's rapidly-expanding urban work-force. A mixture of haste,
ignorance, crude ideological fixations, incompetence, administrative chaos
and mind-boggling cruelty caused the authorities to take way too much,
thereby inflicting massive disruption on the rural sector, badly damaging
crop rotations and the quality of cultivation, and forcing the peasantry to
rely for food on their livestock, which in turn declined spectacularly. A
second factor was unusually bad weather during the 1932 growing season. One
historian, Mark Tauger, attaches primary importance to this, which in his
opinion led to much lower output of critical foodstuffs and significantly
higher levels of waste. (Most analysts do not agree, however. Even those
who conclude that inclement weather did play a part, like Davies and
Wheatcroft, do not see it as the most significant factor.) Finally, there
is evidence which indicates that at least some famine deaths were caused by
a deliberate policy of starvation. When confronted by opposition (and in
some areas outright rebellion) by the peasantry to his policy of forced
requisitions, Stalin's reaction was driven in part by a determination to
punish their resistance and to subjugate them by consciously denying them
access to food. Even if allowance is made for the weather,
responsibility for the famine lay unequivocally with the Soviet leadership.
6.
But was the famine a genocidal
act directed against the Ukrainian nation? There is a widely-held belief,
in Ukraine and elsewhere, that it was. Advocates of this interpretation
point to the profound hostility of the Soviet regime from the October
Revolution onwards toward any manifestations of Ukrainian nationalism and
autonomy, which were seen as mortal challenges to tight central rule from
Moscow. They underline the extent to which Ukraine bore the brunt of the
famine, as well as the ethnic Ukrainians who perished in neighbouring
regions of Russia which were affected (in particular, the Kuban area of the
northern Caucasus). Stalin, they argue, knew that the targets for grain
collection which were imposed on Ukraine were draconian and that widespread
starvation would be inevitable, especially as the USSR continued to export
major quantities of grain throughout the crisis. Finally, they point out
that the Soviet authorities closed Ukraine's eastern border in an attempt to
prevent large numbers of starving peasants from entering Russia in search of
food.
7. There are two major problems with the genocide interpretation,
however. One is the undisputed fact that the famine hit several parts of
the USSR, notably Kazakhstan, where the death toll as a proportion of
the local population was even higher than in Ukraine, and certain
agricultural areas of Russia, notably the lower Volga region and the
northern Caucasus. Nor is there any evidence that non-Ukrainian peasants in
Ukraine were singled out for better treatment. It therefore seems judicious
to conclude, as one UK historian did several years ago, that Stalin 'starved
to death those whom he believed to be recalcitrant peasants, many of whom
were Ukrainians, rather than Ukrainians, many of whom were peasants.'
8. The other major problem with the genocide argument is its
tendency to portray the famine implicitly, and sometimes even explicitly, as
a crime inflicted on Ukraine by Russia. Such a claim is deeply
misleading. It suggests that the USSR was simply the continuation of the
pre-revolutionary Russian Empire and that the non-Russian inhabitants of the
Soviet Union were no more than victims of Russian imperialism. Yet one of
the foundations of the Soviet system was a supra-national ethos, which aimed
to foster a sense of 'Soviet internationalism' among its peoples and the
eventual creation of a 'Soviet man'. This of course involved colossal
hypocrisy and humbug, not least because of periodic bouts of russification
of political and cultural life in the non-Russian republics, yet millions of
Soviet citizens still genuinely saw themselves as more than their national
and ethnic identities (although any sense of 'Soviet' identity would have
been less well developed in the 1930s). Successive Soviet leaderships also
hailed from a variety of backgrounds, not just Russian, although Russians,
as the largest national group, tended to predominate. Many of those who did
abominable things in Ukraine in 1932-3 were not ethnic Ukrainians, but many
of them were. The point is that all identified with the USSR and acted in
its name, not that of Russia.
RUSSIAN VIEWS
9. The current Russian leadership is deeply critical of the
Ukrainian claim that the famine was genocide. Foreign Minister Lavrov
recently identified it as one of the most serious points of friction in the
bilateral relationship. But Russian views are complex. Many in
Russia genuinely take deep offence at any suggestion that their country
practised genocide against Ukraine, and with good reason. The Stalinist
system slaughtered millions of their compatriots too, and the vast majority
of Russians continue to think of Ukrainians as a people who are closely
related, even identical, to themselves. Yet there is also a widespread
reluctance in Russia to concede that the Soviet era as a whole was not a
progressive experience, or at least that its achievements came at a
catastrophically high cost, and that some of the Soviet-era values which
many Russians still applaud led directly to appalling suffering and waste.
Such resistance can reveal itself in stubborn reluctance to acknowledge the
sins of the Soviet Kremlin. Equally, some Russians resent what they see as
a double-standard: calls for them to confront an often dark past, yet a
continuing refusal by many Ukrainians to face up to awkward chapters in
their own history (eg the extent of collaboration in parts of Ukraine during
the Nazi occupation, and the crimes of Ukrainian nationalist partisans
during the Second World War). Finally, there is no doubt concern in Moscow
that, as the successor State to the USSR, Russia might one day find itself
liable for reparations.
HMG'S LINE: SOME THOUGHTS
10. HMG's current line on the famine was drawn up as a
response to Ukraine's draft resolution at the UNGA in 2003. It refers to
the famine as 'one of Stalin's most terrible crimes', but does not describe
it as genocide. Nor is the UN 'the
right forum in which to resolve complex historical issues, even though
terrible crimes are involved.'
(Dr MacShane made the same points in a letter to Lord Howe the previous
month, but went a little further by adding that 'it is arguable whether the
policy of enforced collectivisation which led to the famine (sic) was aimed
at the elimination of all ethnic Ukrainians'.)
EU Partners took the same view. The EU also proposed that Russian and
Ukrainian historians co-operate to investigate the famine and its causes.
In the light of paras 4-8, the substance of the UK's position remains
sound. As ……… suggested in his note of 27 November (not to all),
however, it probably needs reviewing, given events since the Orange
Revolution and the imminence of the 75th anniversary
commemorations (expected in either 2007 or 2008).
12. The UK's position on the
Armenian massacres during World War One, another controversial case of
alleged 'genocide', may offer ideas for an up-dated form of words:
The Government understands the strength of feeling about this terrible
episode in history. The massacres of 1915-16 were appalling and tragic, and
condemned as such by the British Government of the day. We fully endorse
that view. However, neither this Government nor the previous British
Government have judged that the evidence is sufficiently unequivocal to
persuade us that these events should be categorised as genocide as defined
by the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide. The question remains a matter of
debate amongst historians.
We extend our deepest sympathies to the descendants of the victims and
give our assurances that the massacres will not be forgotten. We encourage
the Governments of Armenia and Turkey to look to the future and build a
better relationship between their countries. In the meantime, we will
continue to work for peace, security and mutual understanding in the region.
13.
In terms of handling official commemorations of the Armenian
massacres, we tend to draw on the Defence Attache for the South Caucasus,
who lays a wreath at the Armenian Genocide day ceremony in Yerevan on 24
April. On Holocaust Day, now marked in the UK on 27 January, we have
invited the Head of the Orthodox Armenian Church as an 'observer' at the
event, in spite of requests from the Armenian authorities to play a more
active role.
14. A final consideration worth noting is that the Ukrainian famine,
like the Armenian 'genocide' before it, pre-dated the first definition of
genocide as a crime under international law. HMG has tended not to favour
the retrospective application of international law.
Research Analysts
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
Sources
(Note: the literature on the famine is enormous. The following references
merely scratch the surface of a rich vein of scholarship and research.)
Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow. Soviet Collectivisation & the
Terror-Famine, New York, 1986
RW Davies & SG Wheatcroft, The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia.
Volume 5. The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933,
Basingstoke, 2004
Michael Ellman, 'The Role of Leadership Perception & of Intent in the Soviet
Famine of 1931-1934', Europe-Asia Studies, 2005, 6, pp.823-41
Alec Nove, The Stalin Phenomenon, London, 1993
Frank Sysyn, 'The Famine of 1932-33 in the Discussion of Russian-Ukrainian
Relations', Harriman Review, 2005, 2-3, pp.77-82
Mark B. Tauger, 'The 1932 Harvest & the Soviet Famine of 1932-1933',
Slavic Review, 1991, 1, pp.70-89
-- Natural Disasters & Human Actions in the Soviet Famines of 1931-1933,
Carl Beck Papers in Russian & East European Studies, June 2001
The first official public
acknowledgement of the famine came from Volodymyr Shcherbitsky, the
hard-line First Secretary of the Ukrainian (Soviet) Communist Party, in
a speech in December 1987.
|